A spill resistant drinking container is highly desirable in applications where there is an increased probability of spillage during drinking, such as in hospitals and nursing homes with debilitated patients, training cups for children, and in moving vehicles such as airplanes, boats, ships, trains and automobiles.
Volume dosing is desirable in containers for hot beverages. A hot beverage, such as coffee, consumed at a temperature of greater than 80 degree Celsius has the potential to scald or otherwise damage the mouth and lips of a consumer. Solutions to this problem have included stirring the beverage or waiting for thermal radiation to decrease the beverage temperature to a comfortable level to allow consumption. Additionally, ice or a cooler consumable liquid such as water or milk is added to decrease the beverage temperature. Unfortunately, upon cooling a beverage to a comfortable consumption temperature, the beverage temperature quickly decreases until a hot beverage is below the optimal consumption temperature.
A similar situation exists with cold beverages that have the potential to irritate sensitive dental structures or chill portions of the digestive tract to cause temporary cramps or pain.
Volume dosing containers are also desirable for a user having difficulty in swallowing, which is referred to as dysphagia. There are currently millions of people diagnosed with dysphagia. A patient suffering from dysphagia may encounter medical complications, such as aspiration. Sometimes, when liquids enter the windpipe of a person who has dysphagia, coughing or throat clearing cannot remove it. Liquid that stays in the windpipe may enter the lungs and create a chance for harmful bacteria to grow. A serious infection (aspiration pneumonia) can result. Dysphagia patients are therefore often put on restricted diets and asked to take small sips of liquid to prevent aspiration into their lungs.
Many currently available children training cups are criticized for not being properly designed to train children to sip because of the valves used in such cups. While the valves prevent spillage, they make the children suck the beverage instead of sip it, which defeats the purpose of the training cup. In addition, many cups have a hard spout that increases risk of injury to the children's mouth and teeth when they carry the cup around.
Travel beverage containers or mugs for hot beverages are known. Canadian Patent Application No. 2386384 discloses a beverage container with valve activated temperature moderated chamber. Examples of a “desk” mug with temperature insulated and temperature moderated container are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,823,380 and a limited flow cup is disclosed in Canadian Patent Application No. 2428592.
Known travel mug designs typically include complex structures of valves and/or pump components and do not provide sip or volume dosing.
Known spill/splash proof lid solutions include application and patents CA2219618, U.S. Pat. No. 5,102,000, CA2311058, U.S. Pat. No. 6,076,699, CA2425200, U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,797, U.S. Pat. No. 5,150,816, U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,703, U.S. Pat. No. 6,568,557, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,438,865. In such cups, the lid is usually equipped with some type of valve that allows the user to drink from the cup without removing the entire lid, or flow control solution. Tipping proof solutions are also as known; see for example U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,470 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,520,369.
The spill resistant container of the present invention permits dosing a liquid into small portions (the size of a sip). In the case of hot beverages, the small portion is isolated from the rest of the hot beverage, so that it quickly cools to a comfortable drinking temperature. The container keeps the majority of the beverage hot and prevents spillage. The container of the present invention is spill resistant, has no valves, pumps or springs, resulting in ease of use and less costly manufacturing costs.